Prabhupada enquires about Madras preaching

Sravanananda Dasa: When he came, he came through, he checked some of the accounts, he asked us how things were going. He knew we were doing well, making a lot of life members, we were moving ahead. Since I was only a temple president in Madras, other than that, I had done other things - BBT and East India for a long time, and a lot of preaching and sankirtana.

I don't remember a lot of meetings. I do remember one thing that I probably haven't mentioned before and that is, that we would arrive in Mayapur, Prabhupada was there, and I don't remember the dates - maybe just before one of the Mayapur festivals - I would immediately run up to Srila Prabhupada's room and paid full obeisances. He was in the room with a lot of devotees and I didn't want to make a big presence but Srila Prabhupada looked and he said, "Oh, how was Madras? How are things going?" That was my meeting. I started beginning to talk to Srila Prabhupada and it became quite a long conversation. I remember all the devotees around me - I could just feel their piercing stares - like I had interrupted their personal time with Srila Prabhupada. I didn't mean to, but Srila Prabhupada had been in Madras and was asking the progress at that time, and even asked me about the emergency.

I don't know if you all know of the emergency in India. During that time, Indira Gandhi had basically put a clamp on everything and I told Srila Prabhupada, "It's great." I said, "The taxi drivers don't cheat anymore. There's no more fighting with auto rickshaws. If you want to get something accomplished it's become easier." Because Indira Gandhi was trying to rid out corruption in India. They were putting slogans all over the place. I still remember: Rumour mongers are the nation's worst enemy, and things like that. They were trying to put out a whole new environment in India.

It was just really bad in our days - you couldn't get in a taxi without spending five minutes negotiating the price. You'd send him away, another taxi would pull up, and nah, nah, nah, and he'd pull away - always they wanted two times or fifty percent more than the going rate, wouldn't even go by the meter. Now, as soon as the emergency came: Oh, the meter goes right down, you get in, they don't argue with you, they take you to where you're going and they charge you the price. It was great. So I told Prabhupada that. He was laughing and he said, "Oh, that's very nice."

Then eventually I came to stop talking so that the other devotees could ask questions too. It was an ecstatic experience being able to sit and just talk to Prabhupada like that.